She
by Dumbest Genius I Know
Summary: When she's by herself, or with anyone else, she is no one, nameless, nothing. When she is with Jane she is someone, Maura, everything.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: This is based around the idea that Maura wasn't adopted by the Isles and was put in an orphanage instead. Slight trigger for bullying etc.

* * *

She's there every day, pressed into the back corner of the double seat. She shrinks away from the rowdy youths around her, reserved, withdrawn. Words float over her head, they talk around her, never to her and she presses herself further and further into the torn, red leather chair.

Some days brown eyes looks wistfully out the window, others they're enraptured by Virginia Woolf. Alabaster skin stretches over a small mouth and slowly her lips form the remnants of words as she reads them from the page in front. Soft cheekbones and a proud forehead are hidden under a mass of ropey caramel curls that tumble to her waist. Sometimes she looks up. Eyes the color of mud, flecked with gold glance briefly around, the pain of a thousand taunts buried just under the surface.

Others splay their unruly limbs about; she sits, feet pointed in order to touch the ground. The pale blue dress hangs off her frame, perhaps a size too big and stained with the dirt of a teasing gone too far. When the bus empties and she is the only one left a delicate finger folds the page of her book. She walks, with a balanced grace, toward the front of the vehicle.

Barely there, the vestiges of a musical whisper cross her lips, "Thank you," and then she is gone, until the next day, when she will be back, with a new book and the trails of fresh tears on her cheeks.

Maura thinks today might be a good day. No-one pushed her. They teased her yes, that would be too good to be true, but no one pushed her, so today she doesn't need to escape.

Timidly she raises her eyes from the dirty bus floor and gazes out the window. Students mill around, laughing, chatting with their friends. She is always the first on the bus; she doesn't have any friends to talk to.

The windows are open, and goose bumps rise on her skin. Her dress is pink today, it's her favorite, but that doesn't stop it from letting little gusts of ice cold air through it's threadbare fabric. She wonders if maybe she could close a window, would anyone else mind? She decides against it, they all have jackets, they aren't cold.

The world is buzzing outside the bus window, so she's not sure how she manages to hear it, but the somehow the deep, smooth laugh reaches her. She's only ever had a hot shower three times in her life. She remembers the way the hot liquid would slide down her back and cocoon her. She remembers what it feels like to be warm.

She's only ever had a hot shower three times in her life, but now she's felt that indescribable sanctuary of safety and warmth four times. And then it stops.

Maura presses her face against the window, now she's even colder and her breath is fogging up the glass but that doesn't matter. Her eyes scan the crowd for the source of the laughter but as more and more kids clamber onto their afternoon buses she gets a sinking feeling within her stomach. Still, she keeps looking, and when the bus pulls out of the school gates the girl who usually has her head buried in a book is craning her neck, looking backwards, straining her ears just to hear that voice once more.

"What are you looking at book worm?"

And then she stops looking.

* * *

_Didn't your parents want you? Book worm. Nerd. Nobody wants you here. What's with the sack, couldn't you find any real clothes in the dumpster? Worthless. Leave. Teachers pet. Maur-a the Bore-a. You don't have any friends. You aren't even that smart. Ugly. You were an accident. _

_Nobody loves you._

She shakes in her bed at night. Tears drip down her nose to pool on an already tear stained pillow. Gaunt knees are pulled up to a heaving chest. And maybe she believes them.

No one ever told her any different.

* * *

"What do we have here?"

Her stomach drops. A cold, hard rock settles in her gut and she knows today will not be a good day.

There's three of them now, that's one more than there was on Monday.

She draws her knees up to her chest, protecting her book and small brown paper bag with her body.

"Come on book worm, you're not afraid are you?"

This is the most scared she's been in a long time.

One of them spits on the ground next to her, she flinches, they laugh.

She has learned that defiance will get her nothing but a bruise, so when her arm is shoved roughly to the side she does nothing to stop it. A cry lodges itself in her throat as a sausage fingered hand takes both her book and her paper bag. She sniffs, they sneer.

"What, did the mice eat your tongue as well as your dress?"

They empty her bag onto the ground, her small brown apple rolls across the cement, and the crusty piece of bread breaks as it hits the ground,

They cackle. A single tear rolls down her cheek.

She will go hungry again today.

But they aren't finished.

She knows what they're going to do. Tiny hands push up from the ground and her legs feel like jelly. Before she is even upright, she's sent sprawling.

She squeezes her eyes shut, and she waits. Impact. Concrete bites and she can feel skin being torn away from her shoulder and legs.

She brings her knees to her chest and she stays there, lying on the ground, shivering, blood trickling down her limbs, broken.

Muffled laughter. The sound of tearing pages. Footsteps. Silence.

If she tries hard enough she thinks she might able to lie there and ignore the hot, metallic smell of her own blood. If she tries hard enough she thinks she might be able to forget the sound her book made as it was destroyed. If she tries hard enough she thinks she might be able to imagine her stomach isn't growling with hunger. If she tries hard enough she thinks she might be able to remember what it feels like to be loved.

She lies in a ball on the ground. Blood seeps into the concrete. Tiny shreds of paper flutter, like one thousand tiny ballet dancers in the wind.

One scrap clings to a tear stained cheek.

"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."

She doesn't know a life without suffering. She can't remember a time when she wasn't broken. She never knew what shape she was. She only knew she didn't fit.

* * *

A/N: Quote is from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

There can be more to this if anyone is interested. Merry Christmas!


	2. Chapter 2

There was a game, the kids used to play it at the lake. She played it too. By herself. The other kids never asked her to join in.

Lie on the bottom and hold your breath. Whoever stays under for the longest wins.

The children would surface within the minute, red faced, spluttering, arguing over who won and she would watch from the bank, book forgotten. She knew the anatomical dangers from such a game, drowning, lack of oxygen to the brain, inhalation of water, but the idea of sharing something, even a game, with another human being was too hard for her childish heart to resist.

Before the sun went down she would slip out the back door and run down to the lake. Wading in, her second hand swimmers would fill up with water, ballooning out, making her feel like a puffer fish. Water would slide around her, goose bumps would rise on her skin, but she was weightless. Infinite.

Deep breath in, and, under. She would pinch her nose shut and kick, propelling herself toward the bottom. There she would lie, submerged, on the bottom of the lake. Golden light fragmenting, reverberating, a kaleidoscope of colors. Lungs burning. Fish, darting and dashing, tiny neutrons of energy. Brain screaming. Mud beneath her, soft and warm, nicer than her bed. Vision turning black. Push.

Air.

She would break the surface, shattering the perfect mirror, droplets would fall, like tiny shards of glass, and she would gulp in lung-fulls of oxygen until her throat was raw. When her heart had stopped throwing itself against her ribcage, she would leave, sneaking like a thief through a dark grove of trees. Back to the house.

Maybe tomorrow she would be good enough to play with the other children.

She wasn't. 

* * *

She hadn't thought about that in a long time but now, sitting on her rickety bed, children yelling and screaming just outside her door her head is about to explode. She knows she can't listen to them, and the voices inside her all at once. So she runs.

Wrenching open the door eight grubby faces stare up at her from their positions on the floor. Another game, only she interrupted and now they're silent. Eight pairs of eyes watch as she runs down the hall and only when she reaches the door do they begin to play again.

Through the door, down the stairs, watch for the loose board, across the charred wooden floor of the kitchen, open the door, down the porch and out.

Wind tears through her as easily as one might tear through paper. _What do we have here. _Stones dig into her bare feet, puncturing skin. _Come on bookworm. _Wet grass slaps her thighs, leaving red welts on her skin. _Not afraid are you? _Throat burning, chest heaving. _Did the mice eat your tongue as well as your- _

Silence.

Water laps around her ankles, soothing, calm and it's quiet. There are no sounds save for her breathing and the lapping of the water on the bank. She closes her eyes.

Warmth trickles down her calf. She broke the scab while running. She doesn't care.

Darkness is a blanket, coating everything, including her mind.

A bull frog croaks in the distance, crying out for a mate. He is alone.

Just like her. 

* * *

She feels the blow before she sees the hand that delivered it. Chipped, yellowing nails, bulging veins, clawed fingers. Her neck snaps to the side and her cheek smarts. Her eyes water from shock. She's had worse but she knows this isn't over. One, two, thr-

"You insolent, ungrateful wretch. Where have you been I-"

"I'm sorry, sorry I just went," she's apologizing before she even knows what she's done wrong.

That's wrong too.

Same cheek. Same snap of the neck. Same pain.

"Don't interrupt me. You're worthless. You're lucky I'm letting you stay. No one else wanted you after all. I needed you here. You hear me? You, stay, here."

She nods, "I'm sorry."

"Put them to bed."

She knows what it feels like to be needed. She wonders what it feels like to be wanted.

* * *

Same hallway. Same eight pairs of eyes, only this time they stand up and disappear. Boys on the left. Five gone. Girls on the right. Empty.

Maura at the end. Alone.

Not even the unwanted should have to sleep next to a monsters daughter. 

* * *

**A/N:** I decided there will definitely be more to this one. Jane is coming, I promise! Happy New Year!

Let me know what you think :)


	3. Chapter 3

Leg stinging, shoulder aching, cheek swollen and bruised, but what does it matter because today she can forget it all. She sits in the corner and she disappears. The murmur of other students, the hum of computers, her pain, it all fades away until it is less than background noise. She reads and it's so easy to forget that she's ugly, that she's worthless, that no one loves her. She reads and it's so easy to imagine that she isn't cold, that she's full, that she has someone. She reads and she doesn't have to be Maura Doyle anymore, because she can be anyone else.

Until the lunch bell rings and she has to come back. Then she is Maura Doyle. Then she is ugly, she is worthless, she is cold, she is hungry and she doesn't have anyone. So it doesn't make sense that she would be walking to class and suddenly her chest feels warm. It doesn't make sense that the stabs of hunger in her gut fade slightly. It doesn't make sense that she feels less alone. But its true.

The lunch bell goes and the girl who is always first to class has stopped in the middle of the path. The girl who always follows starts to run in the opposite direction. The girl who lives in the dark can finally see the light.

* * *

She heard it, she knows she did. Loud and clear and deep and perfect and she rounds the corner and she's not really expecting anything, so why does her heart feel like it's in her throat? And, there.

She stops.

There's three of them.

A boy. Dark hair, kind of goofy looking, he shovels the last of his sandwich in his mouth, "Come on Janie, we're gonna be late!"

Another boy. Dark skin, he bounces a basketball, "Yes Jane," teasingly, "we're gonna be late!"

And her.

Maura can't even see her face yet and she knows she's going to be devastating. Long legs, long arms, long hair, long everything. With quick, accurate movements she steals the ball from the dark skinned boy and runs. Scuffed converses pound the pavement, black curls fly in the wind behind her. She jumps and the red sweater comes un-tucked from her jeans but the ball sails right through the hoop. She turns, arms in the air, crowing.

Angles. Maura knows them all off by heart, without even trying. Now she's forcing her brain to remember every slight plain, every rise and fall, every obtuse, acute, reflex movement of this girls face.

"Frost that's three nil! Come on man at least give me some competition."

The darker boy laughs, "Yeah competition from detention because we're in for it."

"Don't worry," the girl grabs her books, " I'll take the heat."

And then they're gone.

Cold starts to seep into Maura's bones, her stomach grumbles. They didn't notice her. She's not sure if she's glad or disappointed. She knows she shouldn't be surprised. After all that girl is someone, something. Maura is no one, nothing. 

* * *

_"She's not like other children John. She doesn't play, or laugh or- you know she doesn't call me Mom? The other day when one of the kids pushed her she asked if she could please call Wendy, took the teacher three whole minutes to work out she meant me."_

_"It's okay honey. It's fine. So she's a little odd. We'll make it work."_

_Muffled sniffs and mumbled condolences. _

_She grips the bear harder and walks the rest of the way to her room. She'll change. She'll work harder. She'll be better. She'll be loveable._

_All she wants is to be tucked in. Maybe a kiss goodnight. But she doesn't want to be a bother. _

_She's five._

Her first memory of failure.

_"Wait here for Mommy darling."_

_It's snowing. Everything glistens and it's so white. She sticks her tongue out and catches a flake on the tip. A tiny giggle escapes her. Pink and purple mittens delve into the snow at her feet. Body, head. Two tiny twigs for arms. Two pebbles for eyes. Her own little creation. Smile still on her tiny face she looks up. A man in a blue uniform looks down at her._

_Mommy never came back._

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry it was a fairly short chapter. Let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

It's Monday and that's her favorite day of the week because now there's another five days until the weekend. Five days where she only gets beaten up at lunch instead of constantly.

New and old bruises make a mottled black and yellow patchwork against the canvas of her skin and if anyone looked closely they would see the places where she sewed up the holes in her dress. No one does.

Peering around the corner of the building she waits for it. Hope flares in her chest, she knows it will come. It has to come.

Just when her eyes well up with tears and her shoulders droop even more than usual she hears it.

The bouncing of a basketball.

Her heart soars, like a rollercoaster climbing after a steep fall, and suddenly it doesn't really matter that she doesn't have lunch today.

Maura's fingers tighten around the jagged edge of the brick wall. They're all that's stopping her from throwing herself around the corner and staring. Vaguely she registers the stinging bite of brick into her skin. She doesn't care.

Maura lowers her head and her knuckles turn white. _She doesn't know you. _Over and over in her head. _She doesn't want to know you. _

"Frost you've gotta be kidding? You wanna get your ass whooped again?"

Maura's head snaps up.

That right there is all the nutrition she needs. That girl laughs and Maura has just eaten a three course meal. That girl speaks and Maura won't need water for the rest of her life. That girl is fifteen meters away and Maura is full.

And she has no idea who Maura is.

* * *

It takes Maura four days to work up the courage to walk around the corner of the building. Four days of pacing and heart pounding exhilaration at being so close to this girl.

She had convinced herself that that's all she would need. That simply hearing the perfect, gravelly voice would be enough. But then she realized that she couldn't quite remember what Jane looked like. She remembered wild black hair, she remembered a bone structure that couldn't be sharper if it was chiseled from rock, but she couldn't remember _her._ And that thought, the thought that this girl would simply fade from Maura's mind until she is nothing more than a shadow, became more terrifying than any fear Maura had of being told to get lost.

Now she sits and stares, back against the wall, less than a meter from the corner, making sure that she burns this girl into her brain so hard that even when she is told to go away she'll remember her forever.

"Yeah I know it's ugly but Ma knitted it. I couldn't just blow it off, that would've hurt her feelings."

Eyes. Nose. Arms. Legs. _Lips. _Maura brands every detail into her memory, making more notes than she's ever made in any class.

"Pfft no more than _do I have to wear it?" _

The dark haired boy gives a lopsided grin but Jane's face goes dark. Maura is sure there will never be sunlight again.

"Shut up Frankie."

The look that Jane delivers to her brother is full of murder. Maura decides that if she were ever on the receiving end of a look like that she would melt into non-existence.

The trio sits in companionable silence for a few minutes and Maura almost forgets to blink. She studies Jane with an unabashed intensity, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks with every second. She knows that she should leave but no matter how hard she tries she can't bring herself to tear her eyes away.

Her whole life she's only ever watched from a distance. She didn't think she minded, until now. Now there's a pull, just behind her stomach that aches at the very thought of walking away from this girl. The longer Maura stares the faster her heart beats and she can't help but feel as though she's been spun around one hundred times and then told to walk in a straight line.

The bell goes. With a shrill screech it rings in Maura ear. A voice in the back of her head yells at her to get up and walk away but encased in glass and oblivious to the warning Maura stays still, watching.

And then the glass shatters. The dark skinned boy, named Frost she thinks, elbows Jane in the ribs and jerks his head toward Maura.

Maura can't breathe and tears come into her eyes because she's been noticed and now they'll ask her to leave. She scrambles up, trying to make herself smaller than she already is. She'll probably get called a stalker and she's such an idiot for ever coming around that corner.

Jane turns. Maura is drunk off that one glance and even though her brain is screaming at her to run her legs stay still.

Biology, Maura should be getting to biology, or anywhere else that isn't here, and then Jane smiles.

It's not a full hi-how-are-you smile but it's definitely not an I'm-too-polite-to-ask-you-to-nick-off smile either. Her lips don't quite part but they quirk up at the sides and Maura is sure she'll never breathe again.

Jane turns, swinging her bag over her shoulder, and walks away, two boys in tow.

She left. She didn't yell or call names, or ask Maura to go away. But she left. Jane left, and she'll never know how badly Maura wanted her to stay.

* * *

"Are you stupid?"

She didn't think so. She's never gotten less than an A. But she must be. Because when you hear things every day. _You're ugly, you're worthless, you're nothing. _They must be true right? And even if they're not, well there's no one around to tell her any different. So she thinks that she might be stupid.

"I'm sorry. I'll be better."

If she doesn't say that she gets slapped.

So now she scrubs harder and faster because the bruise from last time is just starting to go away. When she finally finishes her hands are raw and red and the floor is still chipped and there are still broken boards, but she got out the stain that a little bit of her blood had left and there isn't any dirt. But who cares really.

_Stupid girl._

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks so much for reading! And as always reviews make me smile like an idiot so please leave your thoughts! :)


	5. Chapter 5

Sometimes she comes here when she's not really sure where else to go. Two times she was left here. The second time she knew what was happening and handed herself in. Save some poor officer from telling a child her parents didn't want her anymore.

She was eight.

That's half a lifetime ago but now she sits on the front steps letting the wind whip her hair in front of her face, almost enjoying the distraction of the numbing cold.

She knows the definition of every word. She knows the answer to every equation. Exactly one minute ago if you'd asked her whether words had matching colors, sensations, tastes even, she would've said no. She would've said, _every voice is different but the words themselves carry no added impression. _

One minute ago she was wrong.

"Hi,"

Hot and cold and sun on her skin and if she'd ever had a hot chocolate this is probably what it would taste like.

She looks up so fast that she's surprised she hasn't got whiplash. But then again maybe she has, because she is almost ninety nine percent sure that Jane isn't standing in front of her.

She read somewhere that malnutrition can cause hallucination. Is that what this is?

Can malnutrition make her see black curls tumbling to a dark blue sweater? Can malnutrition make her see dark brown eyes staring so hard she blushes? She didn't think so but it must be true.

"Hi?" Jane again. Unsure this time but still hot and cold and sun on her skin and if she'd ever had hot chocolate this is _definitely _what it would taste like.

Saysomethinggooglemouthjustsaysomethingbeforesheleaves.

"The average snowflake falls at 3.1 miles an hour."

She is definitely stupid. She waits for Jane to walk away, instead, "It's not snowing."

Maura can't tell, her skin went numb about an hour ago.

"I'm Jane."

This Maura does know. Sayyournameback.

"Maura." She thinks that might be her name.

"Well Maura," Jane gestures to the police station behind, "you committed any felonies lately?"

Jane Is smiling and somewhere deep down Maura registers that it was a joke but she has lost the ability to speak. Words jam up at the back of her throat like cars on a highway and it's all she can do to shake her head.

_Hi you're gorgeous. _

Jane scuffs her shoes as the smile fades from her face. A car honks and she begins to back away.

"Maura, on Monday," there's a pause, and Jane looks like she has no idea what to say next, but finally, "if you want to, you can, uh, sit with us, at lunch, instead of, you know, by yourself."

Not a question.

And then she's gone and Maura is eight years old again left alone out the front of a police station.

* * *

The room at the end of the hallway has one lumpy mattress, one window, and one trunk, half full of old, yellowing books. It's almost nothing, but every night, and some days, it's her whole world.

_Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. _She isn't sure if she says the words, or just thinks them so hard that she can see them on the insides of her eyelids. She tries, harder than she has ever tried before to stay. _Hold on, _now she sees brown eyes richer than coffee, and a knitted blue sweater. But in the end it's not enough.

_What do you want to be when you're older?_

_She wants to write safe. She wants write someone. She wants to write loved. Instead she leaves it blank._

_After all matter cannot be created where matter does not exist._

* * *

Seven times she starts to walk around the corner.

Three out of seven times she stops because she can't think of anything to say. That's forty three percent.

Four out of seven times she stops because she's sure she'll be told to go away. That's fifty seven percent.

On the eighth try Maura makes it around the corner.

Red bricked classrooms surround the courtyard transforming it into a dead end. Clouds fill the sky overhead and Maura's heart pounding in her ears is the only thing drowning out the bouncing of a basketball.

"Foul! That was definitely a foul, you elbowed me right in the- Frankie! How could you not see that?"

Jane turns in protest, eyes filled with indignation, glaring right at the younger boy.

"I was uh-," Frankie jerks his head in Maura's direction.

Maura stands right on the corner, frozen, ready to turn around as soon as she is told to go away.

Dark brows knit together and Jane's ponytail flies as she turns to face the direction Frankie indicated. A relaxed smile spreads across her face.

Maura's heart does a double beat in her chest and did she imagine it or did the sun just come out?

"Maura, we were just playing some ball," Jane motions toward the court with a tip of her head, "wanna join?"

Maura has a feeling that if Jane had asked her to grab some matches and set fire to the gym she still would have said yes.

* * *

"Not so high and mighty now, are we Janie?"

Jane grimaces, her limbs fold in on themselves as she sits cross legged at the end of the court.

"Shut up Frankie," she gives her brother a shove as he settles next to her, "it won't happen again, besides, Maura's never played basketball before," she looks up, raising her face to Maura, "have you?"

Maura can tell Jane already knows the answer. She can also tell Jane knows there a lot of other things Maura has never done before. Still, she shakes her head in confirmation.

Frost joins Jane and Frankie on the ground. Maura stays standing.

At the home if she sits before she's told she gets hit, she learned that very quickly.

She hasn't been told to sit yet.

Confusion floods Jane's face as she glances up at Maura. She looks at the ground as if checking for dirt, then wriggles over, "Maura, come and sit down," her voice is soft, as if talking to a scared animal.

Maura sits but immediately the hunger that has always been the undercurrent in her life, like the organ in an orchestra, flares. When she's on her own she can usually block the thought of food from her mind. She's never full, but sometimes she can imagine food doesn't exist, that she doesn't need it. Here, surrounded by three people who've probably never skipped a meal in their lives, the lion that is where her stomach should be roars awake. It claws at her insides mercilessly and Maura is left with tears in her eyes.

Foil rustles and Maura looks up, away from her chipped bleeding nails, right into Jane's face. Foil rustles again and Maura looks down. Jane's hands are empty.

It takes Maura a little over 5 seconds to see that Jane has put her lunch away so that Maura doesn't have to watch her eat it. When she realizes her heart swells. A single tear rolls down her cheek and she ducks her head in thanks.

The concrete seems a little less hard. The bricked buildings look a little redder. Maura Isles thinks she might've found a friend.

* * *

It's ridiculous, and stupid, and childish; all the things Maura has taught herself she must not be, but she can't help it. She wants to smile.

There's a tall, skinny, gorgeous girl who went hungry just so Maura wouldn't be alone. She's never not been alone before.

So when she hops on the bus and everyone ignores her it hurts a little less. When she walks the three miles to the home the wind stings her a little less. When she thinks about tomorrow she almost, _almost _doesn't want to curl into a ball and cry. For two hours of her life Maura feels what it might be like to be happy.

Then she walks up the splintering front steps, sidesteps the almost frozen puddle of water on the porch, pushes open the peeling front door that's only attached by one hinge, and she doesn't feel happy anymore.

* * *

**A/N: **Whoops, little cliff-hanger there ;) As always thank you all so much for reading! (Bonus points if you chuck in a review)

Now I know this isn't the happiest of stories but despite what some of you may think I'm not a masochist (promise) and I know pretty well exactly where this story is going. If you can hang in there I think (hope) it will be worth it.

Happy reading D.G.I.K.


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